


Blood Relations

by ganbarimaster



Series: Jinzula [2]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, Mild Blood, Panic, Poison, Rituals, Spooky, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 05:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13000650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ganbarimaster/pseuds/ganbarimaster
Summary: Having been isolated from troll society since she was a child, Jinzula seeks to learn more about her people. Worried that her unfamiliarity with troll language or culture will make her suspicious or put her in danger, Jinzula infiltrates a troll clan in secret, watching and learning, without drawing too much attention to herself. Unable to resist uncovering the mysteries of the clan, she finds herself in a precarious situation.





	Blood Relations

It seemed as though the chamber opened up before her, leading into what she had assumed was the heart of this ziggurat. It was the only part of this vast maze-like complex that Jinzula had thus far been unable to penetrate. She could have just let it slide, and had never known what it contained, but it’d only ever eat away at her. If there was to be a true test of her skills, of her infiltration abilities, of her success in having fooled this clan into thinking she was one of them, then uncovering the secrets of the ziggurat would be her prize, her victory. Anything less would be a failure—it would mean that Jinzula wasn’t as good as she thought she was, that she wasn’t completely free to operate as she pleased, that there were restrictions on what she was capable of. And that wouldn’t sit well at all. 

She was mindful of any possible traps as she took her first tentative steps into the central chamber. It seemed to be deserted, save for some bizarre altar in the middle of the room, covered in carvings of various animals, and adorned with bones and trinkets made from various animal parts. The troll rituals she had witnessed, the Loa they had spoken of during her time here—these were all alien to her. Altars like this were a symbol of her distance from her own people, and yet she felt as though they held some power over her. They were foreboding, and alien, but at the same time they were connected to her in a way that she could not escape. The feeling this troll iconography invoked in her was one key motivation for undertaking this mission. She would be cowed by it no longer.

But the brief moment that Jinzula had taken to absorb her surroundings was abruptly interrupted, as the chamber suddenly began to fill with a thick, acrid smoke, and the doors slammed shut around the chamber. She was stunned.

_What?! How?! I would have noticed if I’d set off a trap!_

The lighting in the room was immediately snuffed out, and Jinzula instinctively hugged the walls. She had been plunged into darkness, and was holding her breath to avoid inhaling the fumes. Were it not for her current disguise, she would have kept a filtration mask of sorts on her person—as was standard for infiltration missions such as this—and so she crouched down low, and hastily attempted to fashion one using the materials available to her. But before she could make any progress on this, a terrible voice filled the chamber.

**“Ya think we not be knowin’ ‘boutcha… But we do. “**

The voice seemed to be everywhere at once, and echoed in Jinzula’s mind. In shock, she fell back again onto the wall, which was now soaking wet. This assault on her senses sent her reeling to the floor. Her eyes blinked rapidly as she tried to see what this liquid was that had stained her hands, but the stench hit her first.

_Blood._

**“We bin watchin’ ya, girl.”**

As she looked around for the source of this harrowing voice, the smoke that filled the room now seemed to glow with an eerie red hue, and began illuminating the room. It was then that Jinzula realized she had been breathing freely, having failed to put together a filtration device in time. 

**“…And we be knowin’ ya purpose here.”**

She blinked frantically, but her vision was blurring, the walls were closing in and whenever she turned her head, the images she saw took a few moments to catch up with her. Breathing steadily was all she could do to try and center herself. In a brief moment of clarity, a sudden realization dawned upon her—the liquid that was pouring down the walls hadn’t been pooling up beneath her, and so had to be draining out somewhere (if it were a real liquid at all, and not merely a figment of a poisoned imagination). She scrambled around the floor of the chamber like a wild animal on all fours, banging into walls, tripping over her feet, grabbing at anything she could get her hands on. Her fingers caught a grate on the ground and fumbled against it. She pulled at it with what little strength she had, but it would not budge—her fingers were slipping from the blood which was pouring through it. She turned and kicked at it violently, once, twice, and then a third time, with both of her rough, troll feet, knocking the grate from its position. She stuck her legs into the opening and found that there was only just enough room for her to barely get them through—but it would have to be enough. Jinzula forced herself into the opening, the blood serving as a lubricant of sorts to ease her entry. But as she fully inserted herself into the passage, that same lubrication meant that she couldn’t slow her sudden descent. She was plummeting into the dark belly of the ziggurat and at great speed—and was yet suffering from the toxic fumes she had inhaled mere moments ago. Jinzula had expended what little energy she had left on getting the grate open and forcing herself into this passage. Now, she could do nothing but fall.


End file.
